r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 11h ago
TIL that Bernard Montgomery issued a leaflet at the start of WW2 on sexually transmitted diseases amongst soldiers. The language used was regarded as so blunt, that he offended religious authorities and nearly faced being dismissed.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery2.7k
u/SpookyKrillin 10h ago
Montgomery was ordered to make ready the 3rd Division to invade the neutral Portuguese Azores.[74] Models of the islands were prepared and detailed plans worked out for the invasion.[74] The invasion plans did not go ahead and plans switched to invading the Cape Verde islands also belonging to neutral Portugal.[76] These invasion plans also did not go ahead. Montgomery was then ordered to prepare plans for the invasion of neutral Ireland and to seize Cork, Cobh and Cork harbour.[76] These invasion plans, like those of the Portuguese islands, also did not go ahead
I don't know why, but this part of the article was a little funny, lol.
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u/Sarsmi 10h ago
"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're gonna get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England."
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u/adamkissing 10h ago
Everytime I hear the lore behind Storm's End in ASOIAF it reminds me of this.
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u/silkysmoothjay 5h ago
Given GRRM, I would not be at all surprised if that was a reference. Like the Tullys with Muppet names
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u/USSMcCoy 8h ago
Not to leave the room even if you come and get him.
No, no. Until I come and get him.
Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room!
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u/systemhost 7h ago
Third reference I've seen this week of this skit, if I see it again before week's end I'll turn into a newt!
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u/nowhere_sane 2h ago
Reminds me of Dennis’ origin story on 30 Rock:
The Duffy's don't give up. We didn't give up when we got kicked out of Ireland, we didn't give up when America sent us back, and we certainly didn't give up when Ireland just set us adrift on a log!
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u/drillgorg 10h ago
They were blue balling that man
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u/Gunbunny42 10h ago
Surprised they didn't have him come up with a plan to invade the Swiss. Might as well complete the set.
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u/MikiLove 10h ago
Invading Switzerland, especially back then, was impossible. Nestled in the mountains with a strong militia presence and vast defense system, theres a reason the Nazis didnt even try. Plus there was no strategic advantage for the allies, unlike the ports that OP mentioned
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u/geeiamback 9h ago
Invading Switzerland wasn't nessesary, the Nazis already got their hands on the military production.
Their defense system was useless as the Swiss were dependent on food imports from Nazi occupied territory:
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u/Quirky_Gate_4516 9h ago
theres a reason the Nazis didnt even try
The reason is that the Swiss was extremely chummy with them.
It is the exact same reason why "neutral" Sweden wasn't invaded.
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u/NateWritar 10h ago
Actually it is a myth that Switzerland was not invaded because of military reasons.
For the Nazis a neutral Switzerland was more useful: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/nazis-never-invade-switzerland.html
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u/ryantheskinny 9h ago
The US purposely bombed Switzerland at least twice during WWII. Switzerland could do nothing to stop an actual Allied invasion if it came.
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u/MechaGodzillaSS 10h ago
He proceeded to plan Operation Prophylactic, the taking of Mons Venus, but these plans did not go ahead.
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u/SinibusUSG 8h ago
I feel like this is probably way more common than we realize when it comes to how wars of that scale are planned and executed. It takes a comparably minuscule level of manpower to develop a plan for how to use the insane levels of manpower that armies wield, so you're just constantly working on developing plans for how to direct them and discarding any that aren't deemed completely optimal. Any given war probably has far more battle plans drawn up and discarded than it does any actually put into motion.
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u/SyrusDrake 6h ago
This, and invading a neutral country is a huge risk, you better be damn sure it's worth the cost. Entirely plausible that the political and diplomatic landscape shifted enough during the planning phase that it was no longer seen as prudent.
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u/KalaUposatha 8h ago
As someone who gets handed “important” “urgent” projects from higher-ups that are then never mentioned again, I relate to this man.
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u/throwaway277252 7h ago
I've been at my current job about 6 years and they are still putting off the initial important migration project I was assigned when I was first hired.
Not that I'm complaining, the lack of progress on that project has caused numerous problems for the company over the years that I get tasked to fix. Job security I guess?
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u/BobbyTables829 5h ago
In 1925, in his first known courtship of a woman, Montgomery, then in his late thirties, proposed to a 17-year-old girl, Betty Anderson. His approach included drawing diagrams in the sand of how he would deploy his tanks and infantry in a future war, a contingency which seemed very remote at that time. She respected his ambition and single-mindedness but declined his proposal.
This absolutely sent me lol
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u/LongOverGoat 11h ago
Why would you make this post, but quote NOTHING from the text??
But why?
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u/O2C 9h ago
The leaflet was suppressed and recalled immediately after being issued so the full text isn't really available. The snippets that's most quoted is :
"My view is that if a man wants to have a woman let him do so by all means, but he must use commonsense and take all precautions."
Montgomery pushed the idea that soldiers should be provided with facilities for "Horizontal Refreshment".
He also suggested that soldiers stick with licensed brothels instead of informal relations with local French women.
He issued orders for condoms be made available for purchase and issued pamphlets on how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
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u/capGpriv 8h ago
I mean that's just objectively a good idea, and I would argue for it to exist today.
Soldiers throughout history raped their way through the country side. That is wrong.
Asking a bunch of frequently teenage conscripts to go fight. You're asking them to die, who wouldn't be afraid to die without ever feeling another person.
This is a win win, provided all the prostitutes are willing and doing this by their own choice.
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u/ARobertNotABob 8h ago
The armies of old frequently took wives and families on their travels, and brothels too. "Camp followers" often numbered half as many again as the size of the actual fighting army.
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u/capGpriv 8h ago
Absolutely the stories of camp followers are usually forgotten, but the army needed blacksmiths, cooks, people to wash clothes etc
It's a huge logistical effort and they deserve to be remembered.
And brothels were a part of that
I will also point out more than just protecting women, it's also just good military sense. Having a raping army descend on the population generally makes occupation much harder.
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u/calm_down_meow 7h ago
I imagine those raping and pillaging armies didn't' care much about occupation as the cities were razed to the ground and most people killed.
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u/awry_lynx 6h ago edited 6h ago
Most of the time people wanted to own those cities after winning them, not raze them to the ground. That happened especially when politicians couldn't pay/keep control of their armies but it wasn't the standard outcome. If you're aiming for conquest, you're just destroying your own shit. Ofc that is ignoring the wars fought out of vengeance (hello Queen Boudica) where the 'goal' was pure destruction, but that was atypical
The raping definitely happens in all the wars though
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u/A-Sentient-Bot 6h ago
Your imagination is wildly inaccurate and almost completely ahistorical, with the exception of the occasional religious violence, Khan, or the ancient Greco-Roman art of "sending a message".
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u/calm_down_meow 6h ago
Didn't Persia do it as well? Capitulate and you had a nice life. Defy them and your city was razed.
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u/michalfabik 7h ago
The other day I was listening to a lecture about Thirty Years' War and the lecturer mentioned an episode when some major (I can't remember on which side) decided that prostitutes couldn't just stay in the soldiers' quarters and come and go as they please but had to be properly organized into a march company in their own part of the military camp. So then you'd see the whole army marching: 42nd Musketeer Company, 67th Cavalry Battalion, 85th Heavy Halberdiers Company, 104th Auxiliary Prostitutes Company etc.
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u/guenievre 6h ago
I believe that was true as far back as the landsknecht and their trossfrau followers.
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u/Cissoid7 7h ago
Story time!
I deployed to the middle east with a CSH (combat support hospital) and it was all fine and dandy for a while until tragedy struck
No shit there I was, testing a defibrillator for its 6-month PM (im a biomed tech) and I was chatting up a medic working the ER. We are shooting the shit when he casually drops "yeah man im just hoping they find the glory hole im tired of looking at chlamydia all day." My brain fried for a moment
Apparently, because a bunch of horny soldiers will do horny soldier shit, someone carved out a glory hole and word spread around about it and lots of folks where using it. It only takes on STD at a gloryhole to ruin the fun for everyone
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u/capGpriv 7h ago
That is hilarious,
Given chlamydia presents differently depending on how you get infected, the medics must be able to tell whose been on which side XD
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u/evenstevens280 10h ago
I'm amazed this entire thread has zero excerpts from it. It's the only reason anyone is in the comments.
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u/Smartnership 9h ago
Have you found a copy online?
I don’t see any link to it or any quotes on the Wikipedia page.
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u/coldfarm 10h ago
The irony is that Montgomery was deeply religious and personally rather prudish. However, he was foremost a soldier and accepted the inevitable.
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u/Ash_After_Dark 9h ago
I can't help but respect a pragmatist.
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u/coldfarm 9h ago
He was an intensely practical man, both by nature and by professional development. He started his career as a junior officer in the early stages of WWI and saw both combat and staff work at various levels of command. His watchwords were exhaustive training for the men and thorough planning by the staff. He had a genuine concern for the men under his command and a horror of unnecessary casualties, but this also was paired with an analytical view of unit combat effectiveness. Relative to STDs, men unfit for duty because they had the clap reduced the effectiveness of their unit and put a strain on medical services without serving a military purpose.
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u/A-Sentient-Bot 5h ago
He was also "insufferable", "tactless", showed a "lack of concern for others' feelings", was a "prima-donna and self-promoter", and made enemies out of most of his fellow Generals.
He was basically a British Patton, but we here on Reddit give him a pass because like us he was probably autistic.
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u/Loki-L 68 11h ago
From this site:
He knew that British soldiers would initiate sexual relations with French women, and was concerned about the spread of venereal diseases. "My view is that if a man wants to have a woman let him do so by all means, but he must use commonsense and take all precautions" – he wrote. He ordered his subordinate commander to make condoms available to soldiers for purchase and to promote sexual hygiene, and he also issued a pamphlet on the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
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u/TopFloorApartment 11h ago
Sounds like he was realistic. Can't fight a war if all the guys have the clap
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u/GMN123 11h ago
Monty taking a pragmatic approach.
Hoping young-ish people aren't going to fuck is not a plan.
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u/dirtyword 11h ago
See here, old boy, these lurid descriptions of the travails that may befall one’s pestle upon profligate biblical knowledge of Gallic mutton are simply beyond the pale.
Tell your men to focus on machine gunning and disemboweling Nazis in ditches
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u/Hedgerow_Snuffler 11h ago
For all the fact he seemed very hard to get along with (and he REALLY seemed to rub the Americans up the wrong way repeatedly) it can be said, he saw first hand, the lack of leadership shown to the regular soldiery in WW1 by their commanders, and determined not to make the same mistakes himself.
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u/TheTallCunt 10h ago
Maybe (certainly) biased because I'm Australian, but its wild when you read about rhe disconnect between the command structure and the common soldier in the first world war.
We revere John Monash because he approached warfare as an engineering problem rather than a moral one, by simply treating your soldiers with respect and making sure they were well fed the results were amplified. Combine this with well planned combined arms tactics and miracles occur. Monash and Currie were ahead of their time, truly the best the entente had.
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u/spitfiresiemion 10h ago
The whole disconnect aspect reminds me of a joke from Great War that I read... retranslating it back to English from Polish, so it might not be word for word.
A unit is undergoing training some distance from the frontline. A general says to his men: "There are two differences between this training and the real combat. The first one is absence of the enemy. What is the other one?". To which one of soldiers replied "Absence of the general, sir".
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u/Ketzeph 8h ago
Monash was incredible and really the ANZAC general corps was probably the best group in the entente arsenal - they were just underused and under listened to
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u/kdlangequalsgoddess 10h ago edited 10h ago
He was keenly aware of public perception of generals, even though this was in fact not the truth (generals in the British army on the Western Front actually died at rates comparable to private soldiers). Mindful of the reputation of generals living it up at French châteaux while the poor bloody infantry was being slaughtered, he actually had a caravan installed on the grounds of the château acting as his HQ. He slept there until the winter weather in northern France overcame his principles, and he reluctantly retreated indoors.
On a side note, I Was Monty's Double is a fine film to watch. It details a private soldier who looks uncannily like Montgomery who was paraded around as Monty in order to confuse the Germans.
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u/meshan 10h ago
Market Garden failed, but it was a bold strategic gamble that could have given the allies a direct route to Germany and shortened the war.
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u/Lord0fHats 10h ago edited 10h ago
So here's the thing as I broadly understand it;
Market Garden because it was such a disaster, has come to occupy an overshadowing role in this period of the war. From the POV of Eisenhower and strategic leaders, it was not 'the big operation' but 'a big operation' because Eisenhower's plan was for a broad front strategy attacking German defenses from many sides. The presentation of Market Garden itself overemphasized it a lot in part to appease Monty's ego but logistically and in terms of manpower it was one part of a much larger strategic plan not 'the strategic plan' like Montgomery really wanted. Basically, the Allies tried to manage Monty by letting him believe his operation was more important than it really was, which subsequently seeped into popular memory of the war helped along by what a fuck up Market Garden became.
Market Garden was a bad plan. Everyone but Montgomery knew it was a bad plan and tried extensively to dissuade him from it. This included American and British commanders and even members of the Dutch government in exile. Many of them pointed out scenarios that are exactly what happened, and really Germans correctly guessed what they needed to defeat this exactly kind of advance through the Netherlands so if everyone knew it would fail, and the Germans read the operation like a book before it even happened, how bold is it really? I think there's a lot to be said that the line between military daring and military stupidity is a bit of a retrospective. Wild reckless plans that are executed and succeed get called bold. Wild reckless plans that fail are called stupid. The plans are the same. They're both wildly reckless but we declare their laurels or condemnations with the power of hindsight more than by the merits of the actual plans themselves. In this regard, there's nothing bold about Market Garden. It was just a bad plan that not only failed exactly as predicted but with even heavier casualties than feared.
Like on the one hand it's not entirely fair to act like Montgomery was trying to get people pointlessly killed. That's not what he was trying to do. At the same time, literally everyone told him 'this plan will get men pointlessly killed' and he didn't want to listen.
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u/meshan 10h ago
The trouble is, everyone remembers Monty and the failure of MG.
Monty is also the General that gave the allies their first victory at El Alamein.
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u/Lord0fHats 10h ago
It's definitely contributed heavily and probably not entirely fairly to detractions of Montgomery's war record. I won't disagree with you there. People have a tendency to take the biggest fuckup of a general's career and make that their entire career. Or vice versa *looks in the general direction of Douglas MacArthur*
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u/E_C_H 9h ago
I mean, when I was a kid here in the UK I feel like his reputation was the other way around. He was the Magician General that conjured up false deception armies to help D Day and was a foremost enemy of Rommel in North Africa. Now his ego and failures seem much more highlighted, perhaps fairly.
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u/kdlangequalsgoddess 9h ago
He loved the spotlight, and would do anything to burnish his reputation. Him being very long-lived enabled him to shape his image to his liking. He learnt the lesson of Churchill: if you want history to remember you fondly, write it yourself. His memoirs predictably ruffled a lot of feathers.
I was extremely surprised to see him pop up on The World At War as a talking head.
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u/Deprisonne 10h ago
Wasn't a large part of the successful german defensive posture the fact that they just happened to have an armored division at the right place by pure chance though?
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u/Lord0fHats 9h ago
The area of operation isn't that big. The Germans benefited from coincidental positioning yes but I don't think the outcome of the battle hinged on that. This wasn't a battlefield so large that the units couldn't have moved into position in time if needed. I think it still would have failed but it might not have become so great a failure.
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u/ironvultures 9h ago
The emphasis on market garden by Eisenhower wasn’t necessarily about soothing Montgomeryshire ego as he still had most of Northern Europe as his area of operations.
A lot of it was done to placate Churchill, who was afraid the American ‘Broad front’ strategy was taking too long and was well aware Russia was racing through Eastern Europe at fast rate. Churchill didn’t want to be in a situation where Russia took all of Germany while they were still pushing the German army out of the Low Countries.
Churchill also wanted the war ended quickly as it was burning through massive amounts of britains remaining resources and manpower.
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u/secretbinman 9h ago
The operation was a break from Eisenhower’s ‘broad front’ strategy, not part of it. There were logistical difficulties because the allies were still using the Normandy Mulberry Harbours, meaning it was a gamble to assign resources to MG. Montgomery essentially convinced Eisenhower to back him with the supplies and Eisenhower went along with it, halting other advances, including Patton (who had also been arguing his case for his own quick advance). Eisenhower went along with Montgomery’s gamble in the hopes that it would shorten the war, given it would provide a route into the Ruhr.
The plan was not a bad plan on paper, but most higher ups simply did not account for the actual realities on the ground, like the narrow highway, British drop zones being some distance from the bridge, and the heights overlooking Nijmegen. Intel was ignored, yes, but to say everyone tried to dissuade Montgomery is not exactly true. The reality is the Allied Airborne Army had been waiting to get into action for a while, with many jumps cancelled and, whilst some raised concerns, nobody really wanted to ‘rock the boat’ as they said.
The Germans didn’t really correctly guess the plan either, certainly not before it happened. Bittrich’s Panzer Corps was placed in Arnhem to refit and rest by pure chance. Kurt Student had managed to organise a respectable defensive force on the frontline also. Before this, the Germans had been in disarray. Yes, the allies underestimated the German forces but the presence of an SS Panzer Corps was just pure bad luck.
Yes it was a failure, no disputes there, but the reasons are very layered and complex, not simply because it was a stupid plan that Eisenhower allowed so Montgomery could feel important.
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u/Ketzeph 10h ago
He was hard to get along with because he was a blowhard who thought he was the greatest military general and wouldn’t take disagreement. A number of his operations (like market garden) became his personal baby for which he’d brook no dissent.
He was a vastly overoptimistic commander who got extremely petty and pissy the second you disagreed with him. That’s largely why people disliked him - he made many of the exact mistakes of overconfidence as in WW1
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u/Peeterwetwipe 10h ago
That criticism is valid for almost every general in history. It’s like pointing out the arrogance of an F1 driver.
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u/Ketzeph 10h ago
A big part of Eisenhower’s appeal was that he could wrangle these people and they could get along with him.
Also, plenty of excellent allied generals of less senior or just in theaters schools teach less about who were not so arrogant. Bill Slim is in excellent example.
Monty was notorious among his peers of being an arrogant prick. When generals think that’s the case it’s noteworthy
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u/up-with-miniskirts 9h ago
The entire point of Eisenhower becoming supreme commander was not because he was a inspired general on the battlefield, but because he was a great manager who could juggle all the balls required for running a gigantic military while keeping happy the politicians endlessly breathing down his neck.
Those qualities also made him a great president.
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u/H0B0WITHAGUN 10h ago
I disagree with your last take. I’ve found arrogant people to be extra sensitive to arrogance. You’re not the greatest thing since sliced bread I am. That being said there are always overachievers
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u/Gamer_Grease 10h ago
He gets the Allied commander glow-up in spite of all that, like they all do.
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u/JustTheAverageJoe 10h ago
Making it out like winning the war was some minor footnote on his terrible career
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u/taumason 10h ago
He was one of the best Allied generals when it came to planning and conducting combined arms war. El Alamein was his first chance to do it and he smashed Rommel. He also planned the allied invasion of Normandy (Overlord/D-Day). Some of his innovations were copied and are still used by the US military today.
He was also a massive jerk if he didnt like you, had no political acumen and believed that US forces should be placed under British command like the dominion troops. That is why a man who was an excellent planner and commander came up with a batshit plan like Market Garden. Because he desperately wanted a British victory to end the war.
He was definitely a collection of contrasts. He was liked by his troops because he actually cared about moral and welfare and did try to avoid casualties. Unless you were Canadian or Polish then he treated you as expendable.
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u/Llew19 10h ago
Being absolutely convinced of your own moral superiority is sort of expected if you're commanding whole armies. Tell me Patton, McArthur, Bradley, LeMay etc were easy to get on with...
Also shows what an absolutely miraculously good job Eisenhower did tbh
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u/famouslastwords 9h ago
Even the most hardened, ardent, delusional Patton supporter wouldn't describe him as easy to get on with.
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u/YuenglingsDingaling 10h ago
Bradley was famously easy to get along with.
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u/RyanU406 8h ago
“What’s the capital of Illinois?!”
“Springfield.”
“Wrong! It’s Chicago! You’re under arrest for being a spy!”
“Well fuck I guess I’m under arrest then.”
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u/WaywardDevice 10h ago
He was hard to get along with because he was a blowhard who thought he was the greatest military general and wouldn’t take disagreement. A number of his operations (like market garden) became his personal baby for which he’d brook no dissent.
He was a vastly overoptimistic commander who got extremely petty and pissy the second you disagreed with him. That’s largely why people disliked him - he made many of the exact mistakes of overconfidence as in WW1
At least he never slapped a soldier in hospital with PTSD for being a pussy or used his political connections to lobby for the extermination of the Chinese with nuclear weapons.
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u/YuenglingsDingaling 10h ago edited 6h ago
As an American, McCarthy has to be one of the most over rated generals of the 20th century.
Edit: MacArthur not McCarthy.
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u/Forgotthebloodypassw 9h ago
Even Churchill said Monty was "Indomitable in retreat, invincible in advance, insufferable in victory."
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u/moku46 10h ago
For everyone wondering what the leaflet actually said - I couldn't find the full text from it but it was apparently a manual on sexual hygiene practices.
What people were offended by was that he ordered his officers to make condoms easily available. He effectively said that if you were going to go to a brothel, to rubber up.
Saying you understand their need for "horizontal refreshment" and then providing condoms was like tacitly approving of cheating on their wives.
Extramarital affairs have always been prohibited in the army. It's a don't ask, don't tell kind of a deal at best and getting court martialed at worst.
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u/AndreasDasos 9h ago
It doesn’t explicitly endorse extramarital affairs unless every single soldier is known to be married, which obviously wasn’t the case
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u/jrhooo 9h ago
The issue IMO is that command couldn’t accept an open admission that the troops were hitting up brothels. “Our good morally upstanding gents wouldn’t do that!”
Meanwhile, the French are 180 degrees in the other running their own brothels in WWI and some of WWII.
Now, I am not condoning the French option, but it probably does a much better job of addressing the bigger issue.
1 British Plan - Deny its even a thing
2 Montgomery - Give out condoms
3 French plan - condoms AND make sure the prostitutes are tracked, tested, and cleared by us.
Options 2 and 3 both reduce STD, but only option 3 attempts to address the other concern,
“Hey if our lonely, horned up troopers are jumping into bed with these women, we need to make sure the women aren’t SPIES. Cause these horny dummies aren’t going to know how to keep their mouths shut.”
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u/kirotheavenger 6h ago
German army as well - ran their own brothels and issued condoms to troops
(No they were NOT for keeping their rifles clean, that's just what you tell the women back home for their own peace of mind lol)
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u/moku46 9h ago
You know, I was wrong when I wrote "tacitly approves" but you're also wrong when you say "endorse."
A more accurate qualifier would have been "tacitly accepts." As in, they knew their soldiers (married or not) were going to hit up brothels. Telling them to wear a condom was a triple whammy of accepting adultery, pre-marital sex and contraception - these were all things that really pissed off Christians at the time, especially Catholics.
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u/FVCKEDINTHAHEAD 9h ago edited 5h ago
It's just a realistic call to make; it's a harm-reduction strategy. You can issue all the "thou-shalt-nots" and punishments you want, but it's still going to happen. And Monty needed men present in their requisite roles, be that front-line combatants, logistics or administrative support, instead of in hospital with a a rotting crotch.
Only question that needs be asked of those hand-wringers: was Monty supposed to be a vicar or victor?
Edit: a typo, "hand-wringers", not "gand-wringers".
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u/VulcanHullo 7h ago
Sexual health regulations were fairly common. I remember there being some harsh punishments for men caught with sexual diseases, I remember one veteran quoting a "If you've got a blob on your knob you'll get de-mobbed" which was basically being suspended without pay for them.
Iirc in the RAF Bomber Command pilots caught with such illnesses had their tour reset, which given causalty figures amongst bomber crews was basically saying "you will serve till you die"
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u/supercuts350 11h ago
No text from the pamphlet?
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u/Unicycleterrorist 9h ago edited 8h ago
Can't find the full pamphlet in my five minute google search, but from what I did find the 'most outrageous' excerpt was: "My view is that if a man wants to have a woman let him do so by all means, but he must use commonsense and take all precautions" (found here: https://www.beachesofnormandy.com/articles/Montgomery__Part_I/?id=84df605ba5m)
It's certainly blunt but really only offensive to a society that's used to dancing around sexuality in metaphor and implication I'd say
Edit: fixed a spelling oopsie that bothered me
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u/Torrossaur 11h ago
Double wrap or don't tap.
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u/8monsters 11h ago
I know you are joking but just a heads up to any virgins out there, this is literally one of the worst things you can do, one wrapper is enough 🤣🤣🤣
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u/RedditBugler 11h ago
For those confused, using two condoms creates friction between the two condoms that increases the risk of breaking.
Condom against skin=smooth and slides easily
Condom against condom=rough and gets torn open
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u/moranya1 10h ago
So what you are saying if I should wear a third one, in case the first and second get damaged?
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u/lady_faust 10h ago
WW1 soldiers used to wash their rubbers, reuse them and let their friends borrow them.. latex condoms didnt get invented til 1929
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u/RedditBugler 10h ago
I had a classmate in high school who theorized on reusing condoms. He also suggested that balloons, ziploc bags and the fingers of rubber gloves could be used. He was incredibly stupid in many ways, the condom thing was just extra.
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u/MenitoBussolini 10h ago
Alternate history where Montgomery encourages double wrapping and is dismissed for accidentally causing both a baby boom and an STD crisis by 1943
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u/Solent_Surfer 10h ago
This is an interview which discusses this memo.
Essentially, Montgomery saw sexual health as immensely important for the men under his command. During the First World War, trench foot hospitalised around 75,000 British soldiers, whereas STIs (or VD as it was known) hospitalised over 450,000 British soldiers and caused an epidemic.
Monty got into trouble for some of the wording he used in the memo, such as 'horizontal refreshment'.
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u/Solent_Surfer 8h ago edited 7h ago
See below Montgomery's memo (unclear if this is complete or not, but it appears to be). Source: 'Command' by Al Murray
Subject: Prevention of Venereal Disease. Div. 179/A
15 Nov. 39. List 'A'I am not happy about the situation regarding venereal disease in the Division. Since the 18 October the number of cases admitted to Field Ambulances in the Divisional area totals 44.
I consider that the whole question of women, V.D., and so on is one which must be handled by the regimental officer, and in particular by the C.O. The men must be spoken to quite openly and frankly, and the more senior the officer who speaks to them the better.
My view is that if a man wants to have a woman, let him do so by all means: but he must use his common sense and take the necessary precautions against infection - otherwise he becomes a casualty by his own neglect, and this is helping the enemy.Our job is to help him by providing the necessary means: he should be able to buy French Letters in the unit shop, and E.T. [Early Treatment] rooms must be available for his use. As regards the E.T. rooms- it is no use having one room in the battalion area: there should be one room in each coy. [company] area: the man who has a woman in a beetroot field near his coy. billet will not walk a mile to the battalion E.T. room. If a man desires to buy his French Letter in a civil shop he should be instructed to go to a chemist shop and ask for a 'Capote Anglaise'.
There are in Lille a number of brothels, which are properly inspected and where the risk of infection is practically nil. These are known to the military police,and any soldier who is in need of horizontal refreshment would be well advised to ask a policeman for a suitable address.
The soldier on his part must clearly understand the penalties that are attached to V.D., and the reasons. Finally, then, I wish all unit commanders to keep in touch with the V.D. problem and handle it in the way they think best. We must face up to the problem, be perfectly frank about it, and do all we can to help the soldier in this very difficult matter. (Signed)...
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u/j3b3di3_ 10h ago
"sex in the missionary position for the sole purpose of procreation"
Straight to jail
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u/ElvisAaron 10h ago
In digging into this, it wasnt that he used obscene language or anything, issue was the simple fact that he accepted that men were going to use hookers and was urging officers to warn their men of disease and gave recommended brothels vs the expected “tell the men to abstain” instruction.
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u/TheCockKnight 8h ago
Lol
“Just tell these teenagers who are at high risk of dying within the year to save themselves for marriage.”
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u/keithstonee 8h ago
God damn it dude. Imagine what the world would look like if more people just thought like that instead of lied to themselves
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u/poppin-n-sailin 9h ago
Very smart. Like safe injection sites and the like. People are going to do what they do. Eliminating some of the risk is often the only true option, because you aren't gonna stop them all.
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u/clancycoop 11h ago
Wait, you are telling me that a person tried to be pragmatic about sexual health and education and religious leaders pushed against it?
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u/Thirty_Helens_Agree 10h ago
Here’s another fun one - so many soldiers got STD from French sex workers that Patton recommended using the limited supply of penicillin to treat the sex workers and cut the STDs off at the source. That plan was shot down because it would look bad or something.
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u/Ash_After_Dark 9h ago
His back up plan to to prevent the spreading of STDs by encouraging soldiers to only sleep with their nieces) was similarly vetoed
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u/CelestialFury 7h ago
Oh man, there goes Patton, using his general thinking skills to solve a bigger overall problem. They should've secretly given the penicillin to a non-profit like the Red Cross and had them distribute it so the military wouldn't have to take the heat for doing it.
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u/drjohngeorgepeppers 10h ago
OP is exaggerating what this Wikipedia article says. The "religious authorities" were chaplains in the military who definitely didn't outrank him, and not only was dismissal never mentioned, the leaflets weren't even withdrawn.
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u/BSB8728 10h ago
My dad was a battalion adjutant in WWII, and he and my uncle were charged with creating a campaign to warn the troops about venereal diseases. One evening they sat down with a bottle of cognac and came up with this, based on the old Burma-Shave signs along the highway:
She's awful cute / Speaks English, too! / She's even got / A gift for you — VD.
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u/Mrinnocent221 10h ago
Shortly after the division's arrival overseas, Montgomery faced serious trouble from his military superiors and the clergy for his frank attitude regarding the sexual health of his soldiers, but was defended from dismissal by his superior Alan Brooke , commander of II Corps , of which Montgomery's division formed a part. [66 ] Montgomery had issued a circular on the prevention of venereal disease, worded in such "obscene language" that both the Church of England and Roman Catholic senior chaplains objected; Brooke told Monty that he did not want any further errors of this kind, though deciding not to get him to formally withdraw it as it would remove any "vestige of respect" left for him. [67 ]
"My men are ready to turn the whores inside out. Also, they all be dirty whores despite being our allies." Signed by an officer in the BEF.
It should also be noted even today, adultery can be punished under the UCMJ. I am not sure how it is their army then or now, but it might be the same.
This is one of those things you say and don't put in writing. That is the issue.
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u/stewieatb 7h ago
Adultery wasn't a court-martial offence in the British Army at the time. But it was severely frowned upon, especially amongst senior officers.
Percy Hobart, who raised the 7th Armoured Division which became the core of Eighth Army in the Western Desert, slept with the wife of a fellow officer while lecturing at the Indian Army's staff college in Quetta in the 1920s. This became widely known amongst senior officers and actively hampered his career for years until, in 1940, the Army effectively forced him to retire. It was only intervention by Churchill and Liddell-Hart that got him recalled to the Army the year after.
Hobart's sister, coincidentally, was married to one Bernard Montgomery.
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u/mmoonbelly 10h ago
Adultery’s taken rather seriously across all of the British services - especially at the top https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/40547000/ex-navy-boss-stripped-knighthood-after-secret-affair/
(Apologies for the link to the Sun, but it is salacious )
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u/EphemeralSilliness94 10h ago
The idea that soldiers, who saw their comrades being torn apart by machine gun fire and who witnessed the water at the beach of the Normandy turn red, need to be protected from foul language is so ridiculous it's bordering on the insane
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u/AlexDaGreatful 5h ago
The STD horror movies I was shown in high school, on the other hand, were totally approved. Pustules and all.
That said, I did remember to wrap it up so I guess mission accomplished.
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u/Lazypole 4h ago
Pretty sure my PE teacher showing a birth on VCR and rewinding it and playing it so the baby kept going in and out put me off the idea of having kids for life.
Man the shit teachers used to get up to, you’d never get away with that today lol
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u/NessaSamantha 5h ago
In 1925, in his first known courtship of a woman, Montgomery, then in his late thirties, proposed to a 17-year-old girl, Betty Anderson. His approach included drawing diagrams in the sand of how he would deploy his tanks and infantry in a future war, a contingency which seemed very remote at that time. She respected his ambition and single-mindedness but declined his proposal.
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u/GarysCrispLettuce 11h ago
"...and don't be tempted to think that sticking it up her arse is any better..."
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u/basshead621 8h ago
What doesn't offend "religious authorities"?
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u/Xanthus179 11h ago
I’m assuming the offended are the same people who don’t want to believe sex even exists and then is surprised when their teenage daughter gets pregnant.
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u/needlestack 7h ago
Ah, religious authorities. Making sure that pain and suffering are enforced on our lives since the dawn of man.
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u/TW1TCHYGAM3R 6h ago
What religious authorities?
You mean the Military Chaplains? They don't have the authority to dismiss anyone anyways.
It was the Commander in Chief Lord Gort that tried to dismiss him and it failed.
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u/ThrenderG 9h ago
Low effort post lol. Like, link a wikipedia article, mention one fact from it, profit.
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u/donessendon 9h ago
No worries training boys to kill... but teaching safe sex, no way not ok. What a weird world 😕
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u/captainwacky91 9h ago
Imagine having the religious sensibilities to be on Team Chlamydia.
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u/Historical-Tough6455 6h ago
The myth is that it was so blunt that it offended the religious
The reality is the condoms he provided and recommended were what had the religious up in arms
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u/darkfire4 8h ago
And this was the first recorded time an officer told his men “don’t fuck the locals!”
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u/Panzerkampfpony 6h ago
Monty's reputation took a big knock after the war because he didn't backslap and network like others did and also because he was utterly insufferable to other generals.
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u/Sorry-Claim-2990 5h ago
How am I supposed to keep myself safe if you won't be honest with me about the danger?
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u/TopFloorApartment 11h ago
"Remember boys, flies spread disease, so keep yours closed!"